


The Difference

by claryclark



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-15
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-10 22:06:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17434370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claryclark/pseuds/claryclark
Summary: This is a wee one shot I wrote that takes place sometime between 4x09 and 4x10. Jamie needs to speak his mind, Claire needs to speak hers, Brianna needs to see the difference and all the Frasers need a minute to be happy.





	The Difference

**Author's Note:**

> The rest of SLAIWY is coming (hopefully tomorrow(ish)) and so is Streetlights 💕💕(next week maybe??) (soon for sure!!) (no really, I promise!!) 
> 
> In the mean time, I decided to take my first stab at a canon compliant one shot!! I thought it would be nice for Bree to have a chance to observe her parents’ more playful side. This takes place sometime between 4x09 and 4x10.

Despite the chill in the air, the sun was heavy and hot in the sky, making the sweat break out in earnest on Jamie’s neck and face. Pausing at frequent intervals to dab at his brow was substantially prolonging the task he’d set himself to- coating the rear exterior wall of the cabin in the thick paint he’d acquired from the Mohawk during their last pass through the woods. It was a special concoction, apparently, that would protect the wood from nature’s harsher elements.

Having finally set a good rhythm, he didn’t notice the sound of footsteps approaching behind him.

“Making progress I see!” Rang out a clear, English voice from behind him.

He started violently, the brush tumbling from his grip and into the dirt as he spun around, hands clutched to his chest.

“Iffrin!” He bellowed, before frowning in disapproval at his snickering wife. “Ye canna be sneaking up on me like that, Sassenach. I’m an auld man!”

Claire laughed- a full belly laugh- as she stepped closer towards him. “I’ll take care to announce myself in the future.”

Rolling his eyes, he bent to retrieve the brush he’d dropped on the ground as well as pausing to pluck the spare from the pale.

“Here.” He huffed in mock annoyance, tossing the brush at her. “Make yerself useful then.”

She snorted at this but didn’t otherwise respond as she came to stand beside him.

“Where’s the lass?” He asked, drawing his brush across one of the higher panels in a long, clean stroke.

“She went with Murtagh to the still.” Claire explained, glancing at him anxiously. “How was hunting yesterday?”

“Och it was braw.” He smiled fondly. “She’s a sturdy one, our lass.”

Claire smiled back, though she couldn’t bring herself to ignore the subtle thrum of tension that ran through him. Eventually, when she could take it no longer, she took the brush from his hand and put it in the pail, along with her own.

She put a hand on his chest, looking up at him. “What’s wrong?”

He dissolved at once, unable to hide from her if he wanted to.

“I am ashamed.” He whispered.

“Ashamed?” She frowned, genuinely surprised by the admission. “What-”

He pushed away, crossing his arms defensively as he began to pace around in front of her.

“I hate him, Claire.” He spat out with hot breath. “I ken I gave it to him willingly, and I’d do it again to save ye, but sometimes I can’t help but feel that the man stole twenty years o’ my life away.”

He ran a frustrated hand through his hair.

“I will forever be grateful to him. For taken ye in, and being there for our daughter. But by Christ, Sassenach, I hate him to the very marrow of his bones.”

“Jamie…” She reached out for him, stopping when he flinched backwards. “Jamie, it’s alright-”

“It’s not, Sassenach!” He shouted as he turned his back to her, hiding his shame.“I should take joy in it. Entrusting her to his care was the only thing I ever did as her father. He loved her well and gave her a good life. How can I begrudge his presence in her heart? Why can I not just be content to have her in my life, even if it’s only for a short while? Even if she’ll never see me as…” He swallowed. “…her Father.”

His voice broke on the word “Father” and Claire could stand it no more. She put her hands on his shoulders and gently turned him. His eyes were downcast with sadness and shame as she brought her hands up to cup his cheeks.

“That’s not true.” She said in a low, grating whisper. “She just needs time-”

He made to pull away from her again and she tightened her grip, curving her hands around his skull to grip at the hair of his nape.

“Try and understand, Jamie.” She sighed, looking for words. “For us… this is how it was always supposed to be. This was our dream. The twenty years apart- that was our nightmare.”

He nodded, mouth set against the icy fingers of cold memories.

“That nightmare is the only life Bree has ever known.” She went on, voice husky with emotion and memory. “And it wasn’t a nightmare for her. It was a good life. She never knew about…”

About you, the terrible words pierced her like a knife, as she bit back the grief mixed with faint, irrational guilt at the reminder.

She took a deep breath and swallowed the lump in her throat. “… about what she was missing.”

Jamie’s eyes softened as he brought his forehead down to rest against hers.

She sighed at the closeness of their embrace. “You are her Father, Jamie. You and I- “ She brought a hand down between them to rest over his heart, “-we made her together. Nothing will ever change that. Bree is stubborn, like you, but she’ll come around. I promise.”

He bit his lip, the lingering ghost of shame still misting in his eyes. “Can ye bring yerself to live w’ such a vengeful man?”

“It’s okay to be angry, Jamie.” She whispered, dragging her nails across the scruff at his jaw. “I spent the better part of those twenty years being angry.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath when she pressed her lips to his, sealing a kiss of devotion and redemption.

“We lost so much. We get to be angry sometimes.” She smiled wryly. 

Jamie nodded, eyes wide and reverential as he gazed down at her, the lines of anxiety melting away from his face. “Sometimes I wonder just how I managed it, Sassenach. Living all those years without ye to sort through the mad collieshangie of my thoughts.”

She snorted, pulling back and nodded her head back towards the pales of resin pain. “Let’s get this finished.”

They fell into a much more comfortable ease, chatting about anything and everything as they worked.

“And you trust him? This Ronnie Sinclair?” Claire asked as she dipped her brush in the pale.

“I dinna ken about that, but…” Jamie trailed off, eyes widening in alarm when he saw the trajectory of Claire’s latest stroke.

“Och, Sassenach dinna arc yer strokes like that!” He exclaimed, genuinely distressed.

She froze, staring dumbly at him, and then at the brush in her hand where it was pressed up against the wood of the cabin. “Like wot?”

“Like that!” He sighed in exaggerated frustration. “They need to be straight and even- like so…”

He drew one slow, long methodical line across the wood panel.

Claire huffed, rolling her eyes. “Who died and made you Pablo Picasso?”

His brow together in confusion. “Who died and made me a what?”

“Never mind.”

As he turned back to his work, Claire made a rather childish face at him- one that she thought would go unnoticed. Unfortunately, he had caught it in the corner of his vision, and reciprocated by reaching over to press a splotch of paint to her bare forearm.

She stared down at the mark, before laughing at him in stunned amusement. In retaliation, she marked him on his own arm with a much larger swipe of the brush.

“Oh it’s like that is it?” He growled playfully, as he dunked his brush in the pale, eyes trained on her bright yellow bodice.

She caught his intent and backed slowly away from him, arms raised out before her in warning. “James Fraser don’t you dare! We just did the laundry-”

Moving quickly, he swiped a large brown arch down the front of her yellow bodice. For a moment, all she could do was gape at him, and then down at the stained bodice, and then up at him. All the while Jamie stood braced, watching her as though she were an antagonized bull about to burst free of its cage. She lunged at him then and the two of them descended into that singular kind of silly delirium that comes from being madly in love.

********

Brianna stood frozen at the edge of the clearing, mesmerized by the spectacle taking place at the cabin’s rear. Dr. Claire Randall- her mother- her perfect, never one hair out of place mother- was nowhere to be seen. In her place was a woman with wild locks of unruly brown curls, face splitting with a smile that she didn’t recognize. She looked younger somehow as she laughed with abandon, splotches of the thick dark resin paint dotting her face.

Of all the things she’d seen since life had sent her down the rabbit hole to the 18th century, the sight before her now struck her to her very core. It was as though everything she’s ever known about her mother- about her parents (all three of them)- was being written. Memories long stored in her brain would now be cast in new light, the story of her life shifting at its fundamental core.

She stood there or long while as her parents continued to wrestle and grapple with another, the sounds of their playful shouts and reprimands filling the air in the clearing. It was as though they were the only people in the world. And perhaps they were.

“Enough to make ye wanna puke yerself silly, is it no’? Murtaugh’s low voice grumbled from just behind her as he stepped into the clearing, making her jump.

“Oh, um, yeah.” She muttered, her eyes drawing back to them as he came to stand beside her.

They watched as Claire backed away from Jamie, hands raised defensively as he approached her with a newly coated brush. Claire’s squeals of delight seemed to float naturally in the forest air, mingling with the bird song.

“Were they always like that?” Bree asked, voice low and breathy as she looked on in wonderment.

Murtagh snorted. “Like what? A pair o’ clotheids in heat?”

She laughed, nodding.

The old man nodded, smiling fondly. “Oh aye, they’ve been right mad o’er each other since the day they wed.”

Another prolonged silence fell on them, the only sound that of Jamie’s surprised guffaw as Claire managed a swipe clean across his face.

“I ken all this is…” He grumbled, trailing off as he searched for word, “… a bit of an adjustment.”

She barked a short, soft laugh at that. “You could say that.”

Murtagh hesitated for a moment. “Ye ken he dreamed of ye?”

Brianna’s head snapped up. “Who…. Jamie?”

“Aye.” He smiled grimly. “At Ardsmuir, he’d thrash around in the dark at night with his dreamin’. If it was a good dream, he’d sometimes tell me about it in the morn.”

Brianna swallowed, finding her throat suddenly dry. “Didn’t he dream of Mama?”

“Oh to be sure.” He nodded. “But he dreamed of ye just as much. If not more.”

She smiled, slow and shy, more than a little surprised at the delight she took in this knowledge. “What kind of dreams?”

“He never went in to too much detail.” He admitted. “But I ken they made him happy. A rare thing in those days.”

She turned from him, feeling tears begin to prickled at the corners of her eyes. She watched in silence as Jamie captured Claire’s wrist, dragging her to him despite her giggling protests.

“He looks happy now.” She said quietly. “They both do.”

He didn’t respond to that. Instead, he looked her up and down, mistaking her thoughtful expression for distress. “Is something bothering’ ye lass?”

“No.”She said, shaking her head as her father dipped her mother, planting a long, loud kiss on her lips.

She laughed. “Not a thing just now.

******

Blissfully unaware of their audience, Jamie and Claire continued their indulgent bit of rough housing until they were both gasping and spent and covered in thick brown globs of paint.

“Come on.” Claire sputtered through gasps of residual laughter as she took Jamie’s hand. “We need to wash.”

They stole deep into the woods to a wee hidden spot by the river with a calm current and plenty of concealing brush. Somewhere they could cleanse themselves without the threat of prying eyes. Jamie stripped immediately, throwing his soiled clothes off in abandon before jumping head first into the cool water.

Claire was more methodical about it, peeling each piece of clothing off slowly until she was nothing but her shift, before folding them neatly in a tidy pile. She rolled her eyes and smiled as she gave the same treatment to her husbands garments, collecting them from where they lay in a discarded chaos.

“Dinna fash with all that, Sassenach!” Jamie called from the water. “Get in!”

She came to the water’s edge and skimmed off her shift. She was crouched down, just dipping her foot down towards towards the surface, meaning to test the temperature of the water, when Jamie shot up, from seemingly nowhere, threw his arms around her waist, pulling her with him as they crashed backwards down into the icy depths.

She grappled for the surface, gasping for air. “You bastard!”

Jamie just grinned at her, thick ringlets of red plastered to his forehead and cheeks, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close, blissfully ignoring her attempts to batter him with her tiny fists as she wriggled in his iron clad embrace.

He let her struggle for a bit until she was spent, laughing against his chest. Looking down at her face, still marked by splotches of pain, perfect wisps of brown curling with abandon around her cheeks, he felt his heart swell almost painfully in his chest.

“Ye ken I am an auld man now, Claire.” He winked playfully.

She rolled her eyes and swatted a hand at him- a hand he caught easily, bringing it up to rub against his cheek.

“I’m a wee bit battered and bruised.” He went on, smiling when she arched her brows at his gross understatement. “And the Lord kens I dinna move as easily as I used to. And yet.. ”

The playfulness fell away as he continued to look down at her, overwhelming her with the unguarded emotion that swirled in his eyes.

“Christ.” He whispered breathily, calloused palm smoothing over the gentle curve of her face. “When I look at ye, I could swear I was a lad again.”

“Is that so?” She asked, reaching up to touch his face tenderly.

“Aye.” He beamed down at her. “It’s nice after all this time.”

She brought her lips up to hover over his. “It’s everything after all this time.”


End file.
